Born Again Christ’s Version: Understanding the Biblical Born-Again Experience

Jun P. Espina         5 min read

Written on June 11, 2021


The familiar phrase, born again, is perpetually ridiculed and subjected to incredible distortions to wipe out its real meaning. It is about the eternal life Christ will give to us if we only believe. (cf. John 3:16) People cannot stop laughing every time they hear God’s promised everlasting life. Their attitude toward the second-birth teaching over 2000 years ago did not change today. They crucified the Teacher of it, Jesus Christ, and also martyred His followers who taught the doctrine. This truth lives, however, even though the worldview against the Christians is just so prejudiced. Christ said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3) And we cannot change this requirement to enter God’s kingdom. Did Christ mention your religion, baptism, church attendance, generosity, or good works? No. He just said, “unless one is born again. . ..” Was born again coined by Milton or Shakespeare? No, Jesus said it, who is King of God’s Kingdom. It is His Kingdom, and only born-again Christians can enter. This book, Born Again Christ’s Version, covers the biblical born-again experience. We need this paper if we want to know more in simple terms on how to live beyond the grave according to the Scriptures.

born-again-christ-versionI wrote the following paragraphs somewhere in this book: “When someone tells you the path to longevity, you would love and follow him because you don’t want to die. The grave terrifies us. But when the Son of God condescended to redeem us from sin by His death on the cross, the Jews crucified Him because He offered to all immortal bliss in God’s city.

Christ loves us and wants us to be with Him in heaven, but we crucified Him daily in our hearts by unbelief.

This book, Born Again Christ’s Version, presents the benefits of trusting and relying upon Christ’s promises related to the unknown realm after death. It deals with the second birth experience according to the Word of God, as it is our Lord’s method to live forever.

The emphasis in this book is the born-again experience lived by true Christians. It is this experience of truth that Christ’s followers chose death over recantation. It explains the willingness of William Tyndale, the father of the English Bible, to be burned at the stake. The unbelievers and atheists see the second birth as a subject for amusement and mockery. But there’s no truth in their misjudgment of Christians for the reality they don’t have any understanding at all.

Someone wrote about a teacher asking a student that if her father and mother were morons, then what would she be. “A born-again Christian!” the girl replied. And the Internet explodes . . ..

born-again-christ-versionI read a post concerning a Christian for 30 years who later became an ex-Christian. He said, “Eventually my feelings caught up with my thinking and I realized I no longer believed, not with my head or with my heart.”1 It happened because he doubted later in life the doctrines concerning the virgin birth of Christ and His resurrection. This guy didn’t realize that his Christianity was fake for 30 years. The born-again Christian trusted Christ as much as he trusted the gospel and the entire Scriptures. Second, the apostle John said, “They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.” (1 John 2:19) A born-again Christian is always a Christian until one find’s himself a Judas who didn’t have a born-again experience. The backslider will return like the Prodigal Son; the apostate like Judas will not.

The Biblical Born-Again Experience

What is biblical born-again experience? This book, BORN AGAIN CHRIST’S VERSION, presents various angles in answering this question. I also give illustrations, including my experiences as a believer, to validate this paper’s claim of the second birth’s empirical richness. To understand the second birth, I also discussed in this material the meaning of the first birth or the carnal life as the Bible puts it. Observe the contrast between the carnal life and the born-again experience discussed in the following paragraphs:

Note the depth of Christ’s question to Nicodemus: “Are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things?’’ Christ saw only spiritual blindness and ignorance in all those not experiencing the second birth irrespective of their religious scholarship and rank. And the root of this darkness is their belief in helping God save their soul through obeying the Law. Even the most ignorant man in the ditch has this belief system. He wants to help God save himself. Our Lord, however, taught that God so loved us that He gave His only begotten Son, Jesus, for us to get eternal life and the salvation of our souls by faith in the risen Christ alone. Sad that the carnal person does not understand that the born-again experience is the work of God’s Spirit in the soul of those receiving Jesus in their hearts as only Savior, Lord, and God the Son.
From the teachings of our Lord Jesus, we learned the born-again experience as something separated from one’s perfect obedience with God’s Written Law. Christ even uncovered the ignorance of one Jewish legal expert, Nicodemus, in this matter. The second birth is the divine intervention of God’s Spirit in the soul since God the Father loved us and gave His only Son Jesus for our Savior and Redeemer.
On the other side of the picture, the carnal mind just revolves around his five senses of seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, and tasting. The thought about God’s giving His Son to die for our sins at Calvary doesn’t cross his mind. The thought of trusting his soul and eternal future upon our risen Lord Jesus doesn’t live in his heart. For him, death is just the end of the works of the five senses. Wrote one American screenwriter, David Gerrold: “Life is hard. Then you die. Then they throw dirt in your face. Then the worms eat you. Be grateful it happens in that order.” Well, it happens in the natural order of life, then death. But Christ said, if you are born again, the order of existence would be life, then physical death, then eternal life in heaven.
In the elbow room of the born-again experience, the natural and flesh-centered person is blind to the works of God’s Spirit anyhow. The greatest minds who are not born-again Christians accept willingly this order of death in the grave after a life of less than 80 years, without regard for Christ’s promised immortality in heaven. The former Philippine president, Corazon Aquino, once said, “I would rather die a meaningful death than to live a meaningless life.” Death is the end of life, and that’s all the carnal person clings to in the back of his mind.
The carnal life is not attentive to the things of the Spirit of God. For this, Paul said, “The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.” (1 Cor. 1:14, NIV) Our eternal life in heaven belongs to the Spirit of God. But the devil, our enemy, wants us to drift away from this truth forever until we get salvation by meeting Christ in our heart and experience the second birth by faith in His atoning blood.2

This book, Born Again Christ’s Version, is available with Amazon KDP.

Amazon KDP Link


Notes:
1 https://testimonials.exchristian.net/2008/02/i-once-was-born-again-christian.html (accessed June 10, 2021).
2Jun P. Espina, BORN AGAIN CHRIST’S VERSION: Understanding the Biblical Born-Again Experience (Happyprime Corporation, Philippines, 2021), pp. 11-13.

,

About Jun P. Espina

A former educator, Jun P. Espina is a family man, author, blogger, painter, Bible believer, preacher, a lover of books—passionate about many things. He believes life is good when fed constantly with the biblical truth that is wiser than what most people think. Find him on Facebook,Twitter,or at www.junespina.com.


Leave a Comment

© 2012-2023 ByThisVerse | Jun P. Espina. All Rights Reserved | Privacy Policy